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By Slade Sohmer on June 19, 2013

The populations of lions and tigers have been decimated over the past 50 years. Sure, it would be smart to breed 100% lions and 100% tigers. But then we wouldn’t get such adorable little creatures like the liliger, which is an extremely rare big cat breed where the father is a lion and the mother is a lion-tiger hybrid (yes, Napoleon Dynamite fans, the liger exists).

AP Photo/Ilnar Salakhiev

The first liliger was born in a Russian zoo in Novosibirsk last year, but now thanks to science and magic (and maybe the nosy ghost of Gunther Gebel-Williams), there’s a second litter of three, all of them females.

This awww-inspiring litter was born in May, but now the three females are all growns up enough to start exploring their surroundings.